Negocia mientras avanzas: La estrategia de la guerra diplomática

NEGOTIATE WHILE ADVANCING
THE DIPLOMATIC-WAR STRATEGY

People will always try to take from you in negotiation
what they could not get from you in battle or direct
confrontation. They will even use appeals to fairness
and morality as a cover to advance their position.
Do not be taken in: negotiation is about
maneuvering for power or placement, and you must
always put yourself in the kind of strong position that
makes it impossible for the other side to nibble away
at you during your talks. Before and during
negotiations, you must keep advancing, creating
relentless pressure and compelling the other side to
settle on your terms. The more you take, the more
you can give back in meaningless concessions.
Create a reputation for being tough and
uncompromising, so that people are back on their
heels before they even meet you.
Robert Greene

Lord Aberdeen, the British ambassador to
Austria, proved even easier to deal with. Only
twenty-nine years old, barely able to speak
French, he was not a match for a diplomat of
Metternich's subtlety. His stiffness and selfconfidence
only played into Metternich's hands.
"Metternich is extremely attentive to Lord
Aberdeen," reported Cathcart. The results were
not long delayed. Metternich had once
described the diplomat's task as the art of
seeming a dupe, without being one, and he
practised it to the fullest on the high-minded
Aberdeen. "Do not think Metternich such a
formidable personage...," Aberdeen wrote to
Castlereagh. "Living with him at all times..., is it
possible I should not know him? If indeed he
were the most subtle of mankind, he might
certainly impose on one little used to deceive,
but this is not his character. He is, I repeat it to
you, not a very clever man. He is vain...but he is
to be trusted...." For his mixture of
condescension and gullibility, Aberdeen earned
himself Metternich's sarcastic epithet as the
"dear simpleton of diplomacy."
A WORLD RESTORED, HENRY KISSINGER, 1957